Deal includes stakes in Sky and Hollywood studio and is expected to lead to split in family empire building dynasty

Rupert Murdoch flanked by his sons Lachlan (left) and James in 2016 after his marriage to Jerry Hall. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

Rupert Murdoch is set to announce a $60bn (£45bn) deal to sell assets in 21st Century Fox, including a 39% stake in Sky and a Hollywood studio, to rival Disney.

The deal, which will reportedly be announced before the New York stock exchange opens on Thursday, or around midday UK time, marks a turning point in an empire building career that started in the 1950s and is expected to lead to a split in the Murdoch family dynasty.

The deal includes the 20th Century Fox film studio, home to franchises including Avatar and Ice Age, Fox’s TV production business, which produces shows including The Simpsons and Modern Family, and cable stations FX and National Geographic. Internationally, Disney would pick up Fox’s 39% stake in Sky, the Star network in India and the Fox International Channels business, which airs shows such as The Walking Dead.

“It is a fundamental parting of ways between James and his father,” says Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis. “It is an extraordinary change of dynamic.”

Fox’s bid to buy the 61% of Sky it does not already own, which has been mired in a protracted regulatory process, will now be inherited by Disney. One senior analyst said the deal is set to change the balance of power and control of news media in the UK due its ramifications for Britain’s biggest pay-TV network.

“It means another company other than Fox will own Sky in due course,” says Enders. “The level of power the Murdochs would have had owning 100% of Sky, including Sky News, and the newspapers and the issues that has raised will be washed away.”

As well as breaking up his own media empire which he has built over five decades, 86-year-old Rupert Murdoch is attempting to make his family one of the major shareholders of an enlarged Disney, which would become the world’s most powerful entertainment company. According to reports, the Murdoch family trust is expected to take a 5% stake in Disney.

Rupert Murdoch has made the strategic move to secure his family’s legacy, after missing out on sealing an $80bn deal to takeover Time Warner to build the scale needed as film attendance falls and new rivals emerge including Apple, Amazon, Google and Netflix.

The deal will be scrutinised by the US and UK regulatory authorities. A Disney-Fox combination would see it control almost 40% of the $11bn US box office, the biggest movie market in the world.

Following the Disney deal, Fox will retain ownership of Fox News, its biggest profit driver, Fox Sports channel and sports rights, Fox Business and its broadcast TV network of 28 local television stations in the US.

Rupert and his elder son, Lachlan, would also continue to run News Corp, the separately listed company that owns the Sun, Times, Sunday Times, Wall Street Journal and book publisher Harper Collins. Analysts are speculating whether in the long-term the remnants of 21st Century Fox will be folded into News Corp.

The Honolulu Police Department has sent a series of letters to local medical marijuana patients that directly orders them to surrender their firearms or, presumably, face state sanctioned violence to remove them.

Signed by Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard, the letters “inform” patients that upon receipt of the confiscation order, a citizen has 30 days to turn over their guns to the police. This stunning move amounts to direct gun confiscation for people who have no history of violent crimes.

“The existence of the notices, first reported early today by Russ Belville at The Marijuana Agenda podcast, was confirmed to Leafly News this afternoon by the Honolulu Police Department.

Although federal law prohibits all cannabis consumers from purchasing firearms, this is the first time that a local law enforcement agency has “proactively” sought to confiscate weapons from state-registered medical marijuana patients.

Despite the law being confirmed in multiple federal courts, any rational human being knows that this is nothing short of tyrannical overreach by an overzealous police chief who most likely is against private gun ownership in the first place.

Literally no one in the history of marijuana smoking as specifically killed someone because they have smoked a joint yet people like Police Chief Susan Ballard are apparently so caught up in their own power trip that they are willing to use violent force to strip the legitimate Second Amendment rights of citizens who legally use marijuana for a variety of aliments.

Make no mistake, if a local resident in Hawaii refuses this order, you can almost guarantee that the next step is forced gun confiscation at the barrel of a gun.

A Texas State University student is standing behind his recent controversial op-ed published in the campus newspaper that argues “white death will mean liberation for all.”

Student Rudy Martinez has come under fire for his Nov. 28 column in The University Star titled “Your DNA is an abomination.” The editor in chief of the campus newspaper has even issued an apology over its publication.

But Martinez, in an interview Wednesday with The College Fix, doubled down on his arguments.

“The article speaks for itself,” he told The College Fix via email. “… Though my language, especially when I claim to have only ever met ‘12 decent white people,’ could be deemed as hyperbolic (just barely), it has accomplished its goal: starting a conversation and outing racists.”

“… Was the piece racist? Nope; racist attitudes come from a position of power,” Martinez added in his email. “The only group who have ever held true power in this nation are those who call themselves ‘white.’”

The column came under fire for its incendiary and provocative language against white people.

“Ontologically speaking, white death will mean liberation for all … accept this death as the first step toward defining yourself as something other than the oppressor,” Martinez wrote in his column. “Until then, remember this: I hate you because you shouldn’t exist. You are both the dominant apparatus on the planet and the void in which all other cultures, upon meeting you, die.”

Martinez’s column also touched on his personal interactions with white people.

“When I think of all the white people I have ever encountered – whether they’ve been professors, peers, lovers, friends, police officers, et cetera – there is perhaps only a dozen I would consider ‘decent,’” Martinez’s op-ed stated.

“In your whiteness, you are granted the luxury of not having to think about race daily. Your heartbeat does not speed up when you get pulled over and find yourself staring at the red-and-blue lights of the fascist foot soldiers we call the police. You don’t leave your home wondering if you will ever come back. You don’t give a damn,” his column also stated.

In his email Wednesday to The College Fix, Martinez said that for those who find his column insulting, infuriating or racist, he has some reading recommendations. Namely, Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth,” Dr. Huey P. Newton’s “Revolutionary Suicide,” Valerie Solanas’ “SCUM Manifesto” and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

“I am not the first, nor the last, individual to discuss such issues,” Martinez told The Fix via email. “In fact, the aforementioned thinkers are subtly referenced throughout the entire piece.”

Martinez said he is now facing a barrage of anonymous phone calls “from individuals utilizing a tactic known as ‘Caller ID spoofing,’ meaning their phone numbers are appearing in a personalized fashion.”

“They keep using ‘666,’ ‘88,’ and ‘14.’ The latter two are obvious allusions to white supremacy. Some of the comments I’ve seen on FaceBook have referred to Latinx Americans as ‘rape babies’ and a ‘primitive species.’ Surely you can agree that, while admittedly controversial, my article did not stoop down to such a level,” Martinez told The Fix.

“My only regret is not being present at production night, I noticed a couple of grammatical errors that weren’t in my initial draft,” he added.

While Martinez stands behind his column, Denise Cervantes, the editor-in-chief of The University Star, recently issued an apology over the op-ed.

“The original intent of the column was to comment on the idea of race and racial identities. We acknowledge that the column could have been clearer in its message and that it has caused hurt within our campus community. We apologize and hope that we can move forward to a place of productive dialogue on ways to bring our community together,” Cervantes wrote.

The piece was also met with sharp criticism from Martinez’s fellow students at Texas State.

Student body president Connor Clegg is speaking out against the piece, saying “Blatant racism should have no place in a newspaper students pay for” in a Facebook post. Clegg’s post also says he has requested a meeting with the University Star’s editorial board and has scheduled a meeting with the Texas State University President Denise Trauth.

Clegg also told The Fix: “Generally speaking, I want to convey to her that racism shouldn’t have any place on campus and if she plans to stand behind this article while explicitly condemning other acts of racism on campus, then many students take issue with that. Further, students are forced to pay for this paper through their student fees – no one should be forced to support the free press. That’s not how it works so that’s an institutional issue that I’d like to see resolved and I hope she can help with that.”

Clegg wasn’t alone in his concerns. Former student body president Andrew Homann, a senior at Texas State, shared them.

“While I am a staunch defender of the first amendment, this piece promoting racism and bigotry is not something that is productive to a peaceful discussion and interaction among our students,” Homann told The Fix.

This isn’t the first time that Martinez has written a controversial piece.

In June, Martinez, a self-described Marxist, took to the The University Star to publish a piece about the Russian Revolution and how it continues to inspire 100 years later.

In his piece, covered by The Fix, Martinez says he agrees with Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky that the Bolshevik Revolution would usher in a “new form of government” and “would take the economy, industries, transportation, land and give it back to the people,” and that this is “the only way to achieve a lasting peace and avoid oppression.”

“Taxation is theft” is one of the most popular libertarian sayings. Honestly, I do not know why it’s taken me so long to write about it.

The “taxation is theft” argument follows this syllogism:

Theft is when you take something that belongs to someone else without their consent

Taxation is when the state takes something (money) from someone (taxpayers) without their consent

Therefore, taxation is theft

Defenders of taxation will usually make three basic arguments as to why taxation is not theft:

The taxpayer’s money belongs to the state (they may not argue this outright, but it is the inevitable conclusion of their logic).

The social contract argument; taxpayers consent to taxation when they live in the area governed by the state or by some mystic process never fully explained.

They rationalize the fact that taxation seizes private property against the consent of the owner through the “ends justifies the means” argument. To put it succinctly, they believe “taxation is the price we pay for civilization.”

However, these assertions suffer from several problems. First, the definition of “consent” applied to the taxpayer is not and would not be accepted under any other circumstances. Try applying their concept of “consent” to dating and sex. Second, arguing that taxpayers’ money belongs to the state simply raises a whole host of questions, chief of which is this: If the fruits of a man’s labor belong to the state, how is he not at a fundamental level a slave?

Third, whether taxation results in social utility has nothing to do with the coercive nature of the system. All that means is that this form of theft produces good. That does mean the taxpayer has a choice in the matter. They may have some influence to the specifics of how they are taxed, but their direct consent is not required. If enough people decide to tax that individual, or the entire community, the person cannot refuse.

Governments coerce the payment of taxes at gunpoint. We have no choice in the matter. Whether we want the services the government provides or not, we must ante up. And most of us would happily do without many, if not most, of the “services” provided by the government. For example, I would happily forgo bombing seven countries across the globe or funding Big Brother’s voyeurism.

In practice, taxation works a lot like a mafia protection racket.

If people want to argue that taxation has social benefits or is necessary, then by all means make the best case you can. But even if it were true, it does not disprove the claim that taxation is a form of theft. All their apologies would do is justify this specific form of theft.

One does not have to be a libertarian to observe that taxation is an involuntary interaction between the state and the taxpayer. If taxpayers given the option not to pay, almost all of them would avoid doing so.

Understanding that taxation is theft, regardless of its nuances or what the collective revenue funds, helps us understand the instinctive outrage people have at their government when it does something they are opposed to; that government action they find repugnant is carried out through the use of funds taken from them against their consent.

It is bad enough to have your money stolen. It’s worse to have that money used for uses you find detestable. However, what is worst is to have the thief and their defenders insist that either you consented to them taking your money or it’s vital that they do so.

It is why regular forms of theft aren’t nearly as offensive. The thief does not pretend to have a legitimate claim to the property seized and does not insult the intelligence of his victims by insisting they consent even as they bitterly protest.

“The judge at my custody hearing literally told me that Instead of wanting to focus on being a dad I should be focusing on serving my country (I’m a soldier and already spent 24 months in Iraq). So I literally fund the system which took my children away from me. Not only that but I ‘fight for it’ overseas. His attitude was that I was wasting his time and during the hearing he continuously reminded my attorney that he wanted to be home by 4. So not only do I pay his salary, but my problems are the reason for him having a cushy job. Without conflict we don’t need judges, but somehow they treat that very conflict as if it were some inconvenience in their lives, instead of recognizing people like me as the reason they have one of the cushiest jobs on the planet.
So yeah its not just theft, its an insult. If someone kidnaps my kids you aren’t going to then turn around and tell me its for my own good or that its in my children best interest that you are taking them. But when the state did it they turned around and told me I needed to do more for the state.”

3 responses to Fake Hate Crimes Hit ALL TIME High…

Allison McPherson November 30th, 2017 at 9:49 am

Neil November 30th, 2017 at 11:10 am

Allison, If the hoaxers were prosecuted and did time for it ,it would curb much of it but sadly the hoaxers aren’t even shamed by the lefty media who breathlessly report the “hate crime” but it doesn’t serve their agenda to report just as breathlessly the fact it was a hoax later. Just another weapon the left uses to their advantage,liars that they are.

After Russia announced on Wednesday that North Korea’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch constituted a “provocative act” while also calling on all sides to “stay calm”, major Russian military maneuvers have been reported today along Russia’s tiny stretch of border with North Korea.

According to an alarming report detailing the new Russian military build-up in Newsweek:

Russian marines have practiced landing operations at its border with North Korea, following Pyongyang’s controversial missile launch test this week, the military said. Russian naval infantry servicemen and the crews of Russia’s Pacific Fleet ships Admiral Nevelskoy and Peresvet,carried out a swift, amphibious charge on a beachhead in the Primorye region, Russia’s only one to border North Korea.

The cargo and staff boarded Admiral Nevelskoy at Desantnaya Bay and simulated the landing at the Klerk training range, both of which are in Primorye, Pacific Fleet spokesman Nikolay Voskresenskiy told state-run news agency RIA Novosti. Peresvet made its pickup elsewhere but also arrived in the area near Klerk.

Image via The Baghdad Post

Though this is not the first time such Russian military drills have taken place (similar fears over a US-North Korea war led to Russian troop deployment near the border last April), it is certainly a sign that Russia desires to back its diplomacy with muscle in a direct signalling to Pyongyang. The Russian-North Korean border (by the standards of the official Russian definition) consists of 17 kilometers of “terrestrial border” and 22.1 km of “maritime border” – and is the shortest of the international borders of Russia.

Meanwhile, TASS reports that a delegation of Russian lawmakers currently visiting the North Korean capital is seeking to meet with officials there in order to deliver an official Russian message of condemnation over the latest missile test. According to TASS:

“A delegation of the State Duma [the lower chamber of the Russian parliament – TASS], led by Kazbek Taisayev, is currently in Pyongyang under the ‘Group of Friendship’ program with the North Korean parliament. So far, we were unable to establish any contact with them. But I’m sure that our lawmakers will deliver Russia’s stance during meetings and negotiations with representatives of the North Korean leadership,” Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee, told TASS on Tuesday.

Russian military forces in the country’s Primorye and the far eastern Kamchatka regions are engaged in a series of war games and training exercises which involve about 1,000 soldiers, paratroopers, and over 150 pieces of military hardware and transport vehicles, and which will also reportedly involve live fire exercises. The drills were announced separately from previously planned war games, which is a clear indicator that they are in response to the escalating rhetoric between North Korea and the US over recent missile launches.

The tiny stretch of the Russia-North Korean land border is about 17 km long. Image source: Quora

As Newsweek explains, Russia is deeply troubled by the North Korean program yet also points the finger at a US policy in the region which Russia claims is overly aggressive and designed to put the Pyongyang government on the defensive:

Moscow opposes North Korea’s nuclear program on principle and protested the regime’s latest missile launch. However, Russia has insisted that the U.S. must shoulder part of the blame for stirring the North Korean regime into a frenzy and “provoking” further tests with its ongoing defense commitments to nearby Japan and South Korea.

Indeed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated the long standing Russian position on Thursday, saying that US military drills near the Korean peninsula “consciously directed at provoking Pyongyang to some new snap actions,” according to Interfax news agency.

North Korea alarmed the international community on Tuesday when, after a two-month lull, it fired a Hwasong-15 ICBM into the waters west of Japan. State media touted the launch as its most powerful missile yet. Judging by the missile’s peak height reached during its flight, experts say the North now has the capacity to strike nearly any location in the Continental US. The North’s state media released dozens of photos and a video after Wednesday’s launch of the new Hwasong-15 missile, which North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared had “finally realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force”.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has urged countries to cut trade ties with North Korea over the latest tests, something which Russia has refused to do, though India cut ties in 2015, which was a significant blow to the North’s economy as India was its second largest trading partner.

But FM Lavrov pushed back against US pressure and threats of military and economic warfare, telling a security summit meeting in Belarus on Thursday, “We have the impression that all of this is done specially so that Kim Jong Un will go off the rails and take yet another reckless step.”

Lavrov then cautioned: “It’s sad. If they want to find a pretext for the destruction of North Korea, as the U.S. representative stated in the U.N., let them say that straight. Then we will take a decision on how to react to that.”

Following Tuesday’s launch, Trump promised new sanctions in a tweet, saying that after a phone call with China’s leader Xi Jingping about “the provocative actions” of North Korea, he would impose “additional major sanctions” and that “this situation will be handled!” Though Kim Jong Un has appeared unbowed in the face of US sanctions and regional allied military war games, it remains to be seen what the potential for increased Russian pressure and diplomacy might do.